On Sat, Apr 03, 1999 at 03:22:27AM +1000, Robert Elz wrote:

>   | I strongly feel that our default should
>   | have *all* machine-specific configuration information in /etc.
> 
> I agree (though I'd actually prefer things which are really config
> files in /etc/conf to make them easier to find amongst the various
> scripts, etc that also live in /etc).
> 
> But crontabs and even the passwd file aren't configuration information.

They're close enough. But, anyway, I think there's a *lot* of stuff that
falls into the same category as the crontabs.

I think, for now, moving the cron stuff into /etc makes sense. Then, if we
have the goal of providing read-only root, after 1.4 we can start to tran-
sition to having two locations for configuration information, one for
volatile stuff, and one for essentially static things.

What I really want is to have a couple of known places that have configuration
information that I can back up with the idea that all I need to do is back up
these places and be able to overlay them on top of a completely fresh install
to have my entire work environment back.

For now, things that are unique to my system and that aren't automatically
generated:

/etc
/home
/usr/pkg
/usr/local
/usr/X11R6
/var/cron

Picture me singing: "One of these things is not like the others!"

<grin>

> But dumps still need to be done,  which is why I don't want crontab files for
> hundreds, or thousands, of users all being stuffed there.

Hm. Problems caused by scale. I guess that's quite valid. Hm.

-- 
Mason Loring Bliss             ((  "In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams
mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us  ))  build  their nest  with fragments  dropped
http://acheron.ne.mediaone.net ((   from day's caravan." - Rabindranath Tagore